In fact that's such wonderful news I should tell it to you again, this time in bold and with photographs:
Fiji won The Cup this year!!!
All photos by Lisa Tang.
And do note the fellow in chartreuse.
That is former GREAT 7s player,
Tomasi Cama Senior.
Want to see more? My pleasure!
We win!
And please note All Black Forbes' beard.
For years I've been finding it
inexcusably ugly
but for some reason this year I've been
loving it. No idea why.
Fiji 2012 had the most marvelous team ...
Lisa's photos.
Or an even better shot all together in their slick new uniform.
Stolen from Air Pacific site.
... all entirely new, and so slick and skilled that even a day later whenever I shut my eyes I see a Fijian making a break from the scrum and dashing for the goal or flying through the air with the greatest of ease:
Against England
in their desperately sad new uniforms.
Or this marvelous and delicious shot of Fiji rubbing a Frenchman's nose in the mud!
Go Fiji.
Remember Muaroa!
Remember the Rainbow Warrior!
(I will continue to hate the French
until they admit they were wrong
for what they did to our Pacific Region,
apologise to us
and do something to pay for the
horrendous epidemic of thyroid diseases
we now suffer from.)
And didn't we just LOVE looking at those scoreboards.
Scot Juliet took this photo
thinking it was just so SAD.
Oh Juliet honey, you couldn't be more wrong.
Hey, lookee here, I think Lisa may have posted this:
Lisa, honeybuns, from where this footage was shot I'm guessing you made this. If so, kudos and vinaka. It's indeed like being in there myself.
And, gosh, see what I've just found as well:
That's from Air Pacific and I have to say I'm currently in the most enormous charity with them because, when I discovered no one was live-streaming the Friday games down in Lockhart Road, I went on-line to find out what was happening and couldn't find anything at all, not even after an hour of searching, so I posted a snitty comment on a HK site about how it shouldn't be so difficult to find out what was happening with HK7s and Air Pacific posted back saying "Go here." and it was to the most glorious link that they'd put up that had "Everything 7s - 2012" with instant updates and the latest news and photographs, and also with live-streaming of all the games but regretfully blocked here in HK, which was most mean-spirited of us.
But what a good weekend. Saw none of the Friday games - boo hiss, you mean-spirited HK media outlets - but we watched all Saturday down at Devil's Advocate and it was indeed mighty and magnificent and we had the best ever chats with a bunch of South African supporters (who were supporting Samoa - so I'd have loved to have been with them when their own team stomped Samoa into the ground on Sunday.)
But it got sincerely hilarious when Australia came out in their brand new uniforms. Oh man, they are bad.
Oz debuts their new uniform.
Chartreuse? Seriously?
Can't believe your eyes and want another look?
Oz's Walk of Shame in front of the Fiji
supporters after losing to Fiji.
You should have heard the jokes. The sports bar was packed with a huge international crowd and everyone was sick with laughing at them - and isn't 'chartreuse' the most hilarious word to say - but the very best comment was from, guessing by the accent, a Kiwi guy, "I guess Julia had to give her hairdresser 'boyfriend' something to do. Afterall, what other role is there for First Handbag apart from designing Australia's new sports uniforms?"
But then the English team debuted their new uniform ...
... and the laughter grew even louder with everyone trying to guess what the players had been drinking before they threw up over themselves:
England's Walk of Shame past the Fiji supporters
after Fiji stomped them into the ground.
Johnson was saying that these two teams are sporting the brand new space age techno-suits all in some brand new fabric and kitted out with gadgets like GPDs and body-monitors. But don't they ask so many questions, the main one being "Why are they just so vile?" But also "Seriously? Chartreuse? Tang vomit?" and did anyone else notice that English team-player who ripped out his built-in techno-pack and hurled it in anger off the field? Very curious gesture and it made us wonder if they're heavy or itchy or if they just hinder movement.
And speaking of hindering movement, didn't Tonga do a great job of those black armbands. As you know, the King of Tonga just died in HK several days ago and the Tongan team was wondering if they should still go ahead with HK7s this year but HRH Princess Pilolevu ...
The Panuve family pays their respects
and offers condolences to Her Royal Highness
in HK.
... who was in HK at the time to pick up her brother for the journey home, gave it her blessing ... but we weren't the only ones who were wondering how badly those black armbands would hinter the team's movements, but we shouldn't have worried because they got around it so well with the slickest little number ever. GO TONGA.
But Saturday was such a good day for HK. In the past we were sad little wannabes, only invited to the party because we were the hosts, but then the All Blacks took us under their giant wing and coached us up until ...
GO HONG KONG!
... this year, 2012, when we had such a mighty Saturday beating Tonga 26 - 7, then Uruguay 17 - 14, and then China 29 - 5. Oh wow! I was so proud of us.
(I actually blogged a couple of years ago that I'd just met Robertson - seen above - playing guitar with a gang of NZ Maoris and it seemed so odd I asked him what was happening and he said The All Blacks come to HK to train up our HK team; a fact which is not widely known.)
However, although Saturday was such a pleasure for the Hong Kong Us, for the Fiji and Kiwi US, Sunday was the best day ever. Keith, a Kiwi, discovered that our local station HK Pearl was playing live-stream games all day, so yesterday we just lay around in our pjs, eating pancakes and loving every second as both New Zealand and Fiji brought down team after team, nation after nation, in the most amazing games ever, until we were the only two teams standing at which point Keith and I went all tribal and partisan on each other, waving our respective flags and madly taunting each other ... and we all know what happened next.
YAYYYYYY! GO FIJI!!!
Oh, and I have to tell you something odd. Just before the NZ-Fiji game, the Scot's commentator said something (I'm sure no one not from Edinburgh could properly understand him, but apparently those commentators were coming down with mystery ailments one after the other, and so they had to go with whatever they could get.) that sounded very like The Rock - Dwayne Johnson - had just send a message wishing New Zealand a big win in the Final and followed it up with saying that The Rock said that he'd always thought of NZ as "home" because he grew up there. And then he sent particular good wishes to the school boy All Black who had gone to his old school in South Auckland.
It was such a "say wot?" I raced to the computer and googled The Rock and discovered this: "For several years, Johnson lived in Auckland, New Zealand, with his mother's family. During this time his mother Ata ensured Johnson was exposed to one of the urban Polynesian cultural strongholds of the southern hemisphere. Johnson attended Richmond Road Primary School before returning to the United States with his parents."
Who knew any of this?
And since I had indeed heard it correctly, it looks like I understand more Scots than I knew.
What else should I mention that you won't read anywhere else?
Oh yeah, in the middle of an NZ game, just when we were both in stitches because the NZ team was so outstanding and the other team didn't have even a look-in, a non-Scot commentator was carrying on like the entire match was between the various NZ high-schools: "And there's a goal for Colston College." "And a goal for Te Akau High." "And another goal for Colston College." Oooh, such humiliation for the other International team ... when the live-stream stopped and it became the worst news imaginable:
The Chief Executive elections. And the Beijing Wolf had won.
Immediately there was shouting outside our window with protestors' loudly and angrily crying out what sounded like "I do a dickie." ...
No idea what that means, and I've undoubtedly heard it wrong, but I was so torn with one side of me wanting to stand at the window to film what was going down and the other side of me wanting to go back to watch the now-resumed game. And I regret to say that HK7s won and I missed out on getting footage of the police pepper-spraying protestors.
Hey, it's the HK7s! Don't hold it against me.
Anything else? Mmmm, if I think of anything else I'll slip back in here and pop it down, and tomorrow I'll do a post on the Chief Executive elections.
Oh, and I have to tell you something odd. Just before the NZ-Fiji game, the Scot's commentator said something (I'm sure no one not from Edinburgh could properly understand him, but apparently those commentators were coming down with mystery ailments one after the other, and so they had to go with whatever they could get.) that sounded very like The Rock - Dwayne Johnson - had just send a message wishing New Zealand a big win in the Final and followed it up with saying that The Rock said that he'd always thought of NZ as "home" because he grew up there. And then he sent particular good wishes to the school boy All Black who had gone to his old school in South Auckland.
It was such a "say wot?" I raced to the computer and googled The Rock and discovered this: "For several years, Johnson lived in Auckland, New Zealand, with his mother's family. During this time his mother Ata ensured Johnson was exposed to one of the urban Polynesian cultural strongholds of the southern hemisphere. Johnson attended Richmond Road Primary School before returning to the United States with his parents."
Who knew any of this?
And since I had indeed heard it correctly, it looks like I understand more Scots than I knew.
What else should I mention that you won't read anywhere else?
Oh yeah, in the middle of an NZ game, just when we were both in stitches because the NZ team was so outstanding and the other team didn't have even a look-in, a non-Scot commentator was carrying on like the entire match was between the various NZ high-schools: "And there's a goal for Colston College." "And a goal for Te Akau High." "And another goal for Colston College." Oooh, such humiliation for the other International team ... when the live-stream stopped and it became the worst news imaginable:
The Chief Executive elections. And the Beijing Wolf had won.
Immediately there was shouting outside our window with protestors' loudly and angrily crying out what sounded like "I do a dickie." ...
No idea what that means, and I've undoubtedly heard it wrong, but I was so torn with one side of me wanting to stand at the window to film what was going down and the other side of me wanting to go back to watch the now-resumed game. And I regret to say that HK7s won and I missed out on getting footage of the police pepper-spraying protestors.
Hey, it's the HK7s! Don't hold it against me.
Anything else? Mmmm, if I think of anything else I'll slip back in here and pop it down, and tomorrow I'll do a post on the Chief Executive elections.
However, before I put HK7s to bed for yet another year, I have to say something really really important:
Have you ever wondered how Fiji always manages to get such great seats in the HK stadium year after year?
Right at the front in two entirely different spots?
You may have noticed that each year there are two large groups of Fijians in the choicest ever spots. You've noticed, right?, how there's always one group right next to where the players come off the field so everyone can get autographs ...
Fiji mobs Fiji.
... and the other group right next to where the players do their pre-game warm-up stretches and they're all so GGGRRRRR and sexy!
And they're there every single year!
Well, that's all down to a couple of very exceptional ladies ...
Mrs Panuve on the left and Miss Hennings on the right.
... who go to the stadium at five in the morning in order to be at the front of the queue and who dash in the very second the gates open and drape Fiji flags all over the front three rows in our respective favourite spots, and then when the Fiji supporters finally turn up they take any of those seats still available.
What mighty and magnificent women! You know I think Fiji should build shrines and erect statues and write songs of praise to them because ordinary thanks simply doesn't seem adequate.
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